Saturday.

It just sits there.

The fucking chocolate cake.  

The little bowls of chopped up fruit. 

The chocolate ensure,

That I sip with a spoon,

Pretending to be a lady at tea. 

But I can't fool anorexia.  

My stomach hides beneath a baggy shirt,

That I would never dare wear beyond these walls. 

I don't dress up for a Saturday,

On 4F4. 

I hate locked bathrooms.

I hate Saturdays that drag. 

I hate nurses who roll their eyes,

Because there is no place 

They would rather not be,

Than here.

I've been on both sides. 

I've sat behind the stale and gloomy nursing station. 

I've been the nurse,

Tapping my pen,

Checking the hands of the clock,

As they tick slowly by. 

Writing occasional notes in ugly green charts. 

Pouring magic pills for patients,

Whose inner voices are getting too loud,

And pacing circles driving us all mad. 

As boring to the nurse,

As to the patient,

Are these Saturdays.  

My stomach aches.

My head hurts.

My brain spins.

I'm a patient on an eating disorder unit.

I now reside on 4F4.

I have doubts about why I chose

This voluntary prison sentence

To the comfort of my safe little cocoon.

The sun shines brightly through a window

That doesn't open.

I long to drink in a breath of fresh summer air. 

I long to be in a sundress,

Hair messy and sunkissed. 

Barefoot on the grass, or the sand,

Just anywhere outside,

Anywhere with singing birds 

And rustling leaves. 

How did I get here?

The question I ask each day that passes

In this place. 

Three huge meals a day. 

One huge snack before bed.

Needles in my arm.

The girl who won't stop talking

At my table in the dining room.

I'm too polite to tell her to shut up. 

The highlight of my day

A yoga class, so yin,

It's barely considered movement.

We can't risk burning calories here.

These aggravations keep spinning through my mind...

Anorexia is irritated,

She's a whiny whisper in my ear. 

I take deep breaths,

I colour for hours,

Staying precisely inside the lines,

My only sense of control right now. 

I clip the split ends off strands of hair 

in my roommate's chair by the window,

While she is out with her mother. 

The sun feels almost warm from here. 

I chose this.

I chose to grieve anorexia.

I chose to defy her directives, 

And argue her accusations that I am a waste of space,

A waste of messy writing in an ugly green chart. 

Anorexia tells me to pack up and go. 

I could be purging this discomfort at this very moment.

I could hold Skyla in my arms,

I could fall asleep beside someone 

In a bed that doesn't have wheels

Or fluorescent lights above to blind me. 

I could do all this today.

But what about tomorrow bitch?

What about tomorrow?

I would starve again.

I would stare in the mirror,

And I would vow to make to make my hollows deeper, 
And my bones sharper.

I would lose that person asleep beside me. 

I would quickly lose me. 

I am not ready to wear sundresses
Or run around barefoot and free.
I'm still grieving anorexia,
Still missing her cold hand in mine. 

I would fall hard

If I chose to abandon

My present post as patient. 

And I would soon feel my body

Collapse on the dirt floor 

At the bottom of that rabbit hole.

Part of me wishes I was brave enough,
Desperate enough,

To choose the disorder.
To accept a fate,
Of a life cut short.
But I am stubborn as hell.
I'm too stubborn to let anorexia win. 

I hope I deserve a life worth living,
I hope I deserve to feel how it feels
To house my soul
In a body that cherishes
Just how beautiful, 
A soul can be. 

I pray each day

To a God above,

Who promises to love me,

Locked bathrooms and all. 

To deliver me from 

All prisons and cocoons,

According to his will,

When he knows I am ready

To be joyfully free. 

I will not let my mother 

Grieve her daughter

Or watch more tears fall on her face. 

Instead I will hold my head in my hands,

Endure this Saturday.

My heart may ache,

I may cry and sob,

But to grieve anorexia

Is to believe in another day.